Press

Concrete industry continues to strengthen their commitment to product transparency with release of EPDs.

CarbonCure and its partners continue to show their commitment to the product transparency movement by publishing Environmental Product Declarations (EPDs) with the masonry industry’s new Product Category Rule (PCR). ASTM worked closely with the NCMA EPD Task Force to develop the PCR, which was released this past December. The NCMA EPD Task Force was made up of members from across the masonry industry, including representatives from many of CarbonCure’s partners such as Anchor an Oldcastle Company, Brampton Brick, and A. Jandris & Sons.

CarbonCure provides EPDs and HPDs for products made with CarbonCure’s technology, which captures waste carbon dioxide and sequesters it into concrete masonry and ready mixed concrete products.

As a company that cares deeply about the environmental impact of the concrete industry, CarbonCure is excited to see the NCMA take an active role in propelling the transparency movement forward. The new PCR allows for the rules of a Life Cycle Analysis (LCA) to be more tailored to concrete masonry products, which provides specifiers with more detailed information when comparing products. This comparability is particularly useful when looking to complete the calculations for the Materials & Resources credits under the new LEEDv4 rating system.

Before the ASTM PCR was issued, the masonry industry relied on a PCR developed by the Carbon Leadership Forum (CFL), or other PCRs from Europe, in order to issue EPDs. The new masonry PCR takes into account the different manufacturing processes and energy demands associated with concrete masonry products, which are not captured in the Carbon Leadership Forum’s PCR for ready mixed concrete products.

Architects and designers are excited about the increase in the number of EPDs available in the marketplace today, including Anthony Bernheim, President and Co-Founder of Bernheim+Dean, Inc. “EPDs are important documents that provide the building designer, owner and user information on the system’s and product’s global environmental impact, so that they may make more informed decisions regarding their building’s components,” says Bernheim.

CarbonCure’s manufacturing partners are happy to be responding to the demands for transparent information from end users like Bernheim. “It’s clear that policy, industry, and designers are all trying to do their part and address the needs of the environment,” said Dale Puskas, Vice President of Basalite Concrete Products. “We want to help our customers achieve their goals of designing and developing more sustainable buildings, and the way to do so is through disclosure.”

CarbonCure’s commitment to the product transparency movement goes beyond EPDs, as CarbonCure was the first in the concrete industry to issue Health Product Declarations (HPDs). “It’s a great feeling to contribute to a topic that is so fundamentally important to the sustainability movement and will soon change how decisions are made about building material specifications,” says Robert Niven, CarbonCure’s CEO and Founder.

CarbonCure continues to play a prominent role in promoting material transparency in the concrete industry. CarbonCure’s Vice President of Sustainability, Jennifer Wagner, is the chair of the Health Product Declaration Collaborative (HPDC) Supply Chain Challenges Working Group and sits on the USGBC’s Supply Chain Optimization Working Group. Both groups focus on connecting the dots between suppliers and manufacturers, in order to remove barriers to publishing HPDs. CarbonCure’s Sustainability Manager, Scott Biggar, is an active member of the AEC Material Transparency Group, which focuses on engaging industry leaders to find alternative approaches to material transparency. CarbonCure team members have also been working as part of the HPDC’s Manufacturers Advisory Panel to test their new version 2.0 HPD tool, which is set for public release this spring.

The newly published Environmental Product Declarations can be found on here.